Serving with NATO will become a formal prerequisite for promotion to senior ranks in the British Armed Forces, Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard confirmed to Parliament’s Defence Committee on 8 July.
Addressing concerns that NATO assignments are still often perceived as career cul-de-sacs, Pollard said the Government intends to shift internal culture and promotion criteria to make such deployments a recognised leadership asset.
“NATO first is an absolute golden thread throughout the Strategic Defence Review,” Pollard said, referring to the 2025 defence policy document that re-centres British security strategy on the Euro-Atlantic theatre. “It has been very clear that we are focusing on the Euro-Atlantic as our primary area of concern, and that is why the SDR rightly contains a lot of NATO.”
He added that the UK’s military leadership track would now incorporate an overseas deployment, “ideally at NATO”, as a condition for advancement. This change, he said, was designed both to improve the UK’s understanding of alliance operations and to ensure that personnel see NATO posts as “a zig-zagging approach that actually enhances someone’s career,” rather than as a side-track.
Committee member Ian Roome MP challenged Pollard on how this ambition would be realised, noting that many senior British officers had little meaningful experience of NATO during their careers and that some seconded staff struggled with appraisals written by foreign superiors. Roome noted that during a recent visit to NATO’s Ramstein Air Base, “it is seen as a sidestep” by some UK officers.
Pollard said that implementing the change would involve communicating new expectations to defence career managers. “We are valuing NATO roles more,” he told the Committee. “It is a key part of the shift we are making to put our people at the heart of defence policy, whether at home or deployed abroad.”
He acknowledged that living and working abroad can be challenging for families, particularly following Brexit, which has made it harder for spouses to work in EU-based postings. To address this, Pollard pointed to recent improvements in childcare provision for overseas deployments, and ongoing efforts to improve what he called “the offer.”
Air Vice-Marshal Mark Flewin, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff for Military Strategy, reinforced the Government’s position. “NATO has clearly been the bedrock of European security for over 75 years now,” he said. “We are very well represented across NATO in MARCOM, LANDCOM and AIRCOM and we are working now on ensuring that NATO roles are properly structured into career development.”
He confirmed that the MoD’s Defence People group is actively reviewing how NATO experience is factored into promotions and that this workstream stems directly from the Strategic Defence Review.
